Elongated, flat, relatively stiff board like members, commonly referred to as spine boards, have been used over the years when it is necessary or desirable to move persons with broken, fractured or otherwise injured backs and/or necks. These patients have usually been in some manner strapped onto the board to restrict movement which could otherwise aggrevate or further injure the party. If a person has a broken or otherwise injured neck, sandbags placed on either side of the head have been used as stablizers to prevent undesirable and dangerous rolling of the head. These sandbags, while being much better than nothing, have their limitations in that it is next to impossible to place them tight enough against the head that all appreciable movement between them and the body is prevented. Also if the patient is being transported in an emergency or similar type vehicle, the danger of shifting sandbags is greatly increased thereby greatly increasing the danger of further injury to the patient.
Although short spine boards have been used to remove injured parties from confined areas such as when they are pinned in the wreckage of automobiles, airplanes and the like, the passing of straps around the patient and through openings in the board is a time consuming and laborious process and quite often must be accomplished under hazardous or even dangerous conditions where time is of the ultimate essence. Also means for stabilizing the head of the person strapped to the short board during initial removal has been inadequate at best.
Continuing to use the prior known procedures, once the patient has been removed from the confined area with the aid of the short board, he is laid down in a prone position and quite often is unstrapped from the short board and moved over to an adjacent full length spine board and is restrapped thereto, again usually by laboriously feeding the straps through openings in the board itself. If head stabilization is required, sandbags would be used as stabilizers on each side of the head and then transported to medical facilities or other remote locations are accomplished, hopefully with minimum additional injury occurring.